Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
S alem
My mouth goes dry at the sight of the text from Ever that tells me someone from Kellen’s past has come forward to claim he told her he sexually harassed Gina Randolph. Just when things were starting to go my way, this happens.
I stop myself from unraveling and correct that thought. Whatever this is with Kellen’s ex, it isn’t my life that will be harmed.
It’s his.
“What?” he asks, hurrying over to sit next to me at the kitchen table.
For a long moment, I consider whether or not I want to let him in on this news. He was so happy last night when his nephew was born, and then we got together and had a great time. This will only serve to make him miserable again.
Once more, I remind myself that this is his life being examined under a microscope by the world, not mine. He deserves to know what’s happening.
So I turn my phone toward him and say, “This just came from my sister, Ever.”
His eyes scan the message, and his shoulders sag, like all the happiness leaves his body. “Charly Evans. Why am I not surprised?”
“My sister says the major media outlets are going to run this today, so I need to know whatever there is to know about Miss Evans so we can get out in front of this. Anything and everything, Kellen.”
A sheepish look comes over him, and he hangs his head. “Charly isn’t my finest hour, Salem. I dated her when I was nineteen or twenty. I was in college, and she was a waitress at a club my friends and I used fake IDs to get into. There was a lot of drinking, to say the least, and one thing lead to another. I thought she was a sweet girl, to be honest, but when my father found out about her and the club, he made it clear that wasn’t to happen again. It’s not like we were in love or anything. I was young, so was she, and we had some good times.”
My stomach twists into a tight, anxious knot as he recounts their time together. It’s nothing that should be an issue, but after sleeping with him last night, it would have been nice if we could have a few days without this being dropped into our laps.
“When was the last time you saw her, Kellen? From the way Ever hears the story everyone is telling, it must have been within the past month or two.”
Even as the words come out, I can’t imagine it’s possible. He’s been at the house with me all that time.
He shakes his head vehemently. “No. I haven’t seen her since that night I met her after she got out of work when the club closed and I told her I wouldn’t be coming around anymore. For God’s sake, that must be at least five years already. Why she’s coming out of the woodwork now is beyond me.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose to forestall the headache that’s beginning to form behind my eyes. “Because she sees a payday.”
“From me? The company? Whichever it is, she’s barking up the wrong tree, Salem. Nobody’s going to pay her to make her not lie.”
He’s so na?ve sometimes. Maybe it’s because he grew up in this beautiful home surrounded by people who cared about him. Maybe it’s because he’s loaded so he doesn’t get to see the seedier side of life. I don’t know what it is that makes him think the way he does, but I have to make him understand what she’s doing.
“No, Kellen, she doesn’t plan to get money from you. She sold her story to some gossip rag, and now the mainstream outlets are running with it because you’re the flavor of the season.”
He sits back and shakes his head in disbelief. “Don’t they fact check these things before announcing shit to the world? I mean, I know the gossip ones don’t, but the mainstream media doesn’t?”
“They used to, but with the internet and amateur photographers everywhere nowadays, they feel like they need to beat as many people as possible to the story to get any benefit.”
I stop for a moment as a thought occurs to me. Now might be the time for Kellen to do one of those interviews I’ve been holding off on this whole time. I’d hoped everything would die down by now, assuming some celebrity would go on some bizarre social media rant or some sports star would disgrace themselves and give Kellen a reprieve from the spotlight, but since that hasn’t happened, an interview might be in order.
“Listen to me, Kellen. What I’m about to suggest may seem contrary to everything I’ve said before, but hear me out.”
He smiles and leans forward to kiss me softly on the lips. “I trust you, Salem. Tell me what you believe I need to do, and I’ll do it.”
I take a deep breath and slowly let it out, hoping my gut is right on this one. “I’m going to set up an interview for you. I’ve got half a dozen offers, but so far I haven’t thought it was the right time. I think Miss Evans just changed my timetable and made it the right time.”
His expression grows dark. “You know how my last one went, right?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t working with you then. I am now, and I won’t let anyone run roughshod over you with questions only intended to trick you into revealing something we don’t want you to discuss. There will be stringent guidelines as to what questions can be asked, and if the interviewer doesn’t follow the rules I establish, I’ll shut the interview down so fast their head will spin. Trust me. This is where I shine, baby.”
He smiles in that sexy way I can’t deny is so enticing. “I do trust you. Set it up. By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything as hot as you talking about making some journalist’s head spin off their shoulders.”
“You like powerful women?” I ask, flattered that he likes my tough fixer side.
“Just you. Oh, and there was this female professional wrestler I was crazy about when I was a teenager.”
Kellen abruptly stops talking and then adds, “By the look you’re giving me, I’m guessing that wasn’t the answer you wanted. Let’s just go with I like you being powerful.”
“Good answer. By the way, we’re going to do some serious prep for this interview, so get ready. You may not be so crazy about powerful me afterward. I’ll also be right there with you watching the whole interview go down, so don’t worry.”
As I text Ever back thanking her for giving me a head’s up about this new wrinkle, he says, “I’m not worried, Salem. I trust you.”
Standing from the table, I stuff my phone in my pocket. “I need to get to work. Stay and eat pancakes.”
Again, concern fills his eyes. “You can’t have any before you get going with your day?”
I shake my head and bend down to kiss him. “No. I need to make some big decisions in the next hour or so. Crises wait for no man. Or woman, no matter how powerful. No worries. I got this.”
He smiles, but I can tell it’s forced. He’s worried, and assuming he told me the truth about Charly Evans, I think his fear is that I won’t want anything to do with him now.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I know the kind of man Kellen King is. Now I plan to make sure the rest of the world sees that man in full color sitting with one of the world’s biggest media personalities.
Jessica Marchand chats up one of the cameramen on the other side of the hotel room where we’re about to do Kellen’s second interview while I fix his blue tie I picked out especially for this event. After explaining to Curtis that this interview had to be with a woman and fending off his claims of my being sexist by promising him the next interview, if there’s a need for one, I called Jessica and offered her the chance to have an exclusive sit-down with the man of the hour.
Of course, she immediately insisted on having free reign with the topics that would be covered, and I shot her down without missing a beat. After wrangling for nearly an hour and then conferring with Kellen’s lawyers, we reached an agreement that brought him to the Ritz room 412 today.
He fidgets, shifting back and forth from his left foot to his right and then back again, so I pat his chest just below the Windsor knot in his tie and whisper, “Stay calm. You’re going to be great. We practiced for the past week. If she dares to go into any area I deemed off limits, I’ll stop this interview?—”
With a smile, he interrupts me. “So fast her head will spin. I know. You wouldn’t just throw me to the wolves. I’m just worried I won’t come off well on camera.”
I look him up and down and can’t imagine how he could think that. The steel gray suit and pale blue dress shirt with the royal blue tie combination I chose for today is perfect and makes him look stunning. Women will like how he looks, and when they hear what he has to say, they’ll fall in love with him. I don’t care about how men feel, but I can’t imagine they’ll hate him after today either.
I’m just worried about one thing.
“Hey, I need you to listen to me, okay? Do not be defensive. I know this entire saga with first Gina and now Charly is terrible. I get it. And once we’re done here, if you want to complain about all of it for the rest of the day, I’ll block out all the hours you need, order food in, and I’ll be happy to listen to you bitch your heart out. I just need you to not show that side of you in this interview. People interpret defensiveness as guilt. It’s not right, but it’s just the way humans are. So none of that, okay? You’re calm. You’re a decent guy. Nobody needs you to be a saint. Just no defensiveness.”
He nods and takes a deep breath. “I know. I want to ace this. I do. I just need to remember I have someone great waiting for me on the other side. If I forget to tell you later because I plan to drink my weight in alcohol and eat more takeout Chinese than any man has ever consumed, thank you for believing in me.”
Behind us, Jessica says in a playful voice, “It’s showtime, ladies and gentlemen. Ready?”
A momentary flash of fear fills his eyes before he smiles at her and then looks at me. “Guess that’s my cue.”
I straighten his tie for the third time in five minutes and silently pray to God he’ll do as he promised. Standing on my tiptoes, I whisper in his ear, “I’m right here. No worries. You got this. And I love you.”
When I step back, he’s smiling from ear to ear. “You love me?” he whispers back to me.
“Yes, but try not to smile so big, okay? You look like you’re hiding something. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but I wanted you to know I’m by your side because I love you, Kellen.”
He takes another deep breath and lets it out in a rush. “You love me. Will you still love me if I screw this up?”
I roll my eyes and try to stop myself from laughing. “You won’t screw it up. Now remember, no defensiveness, you don’t have to be a saint so be yourself, and no huge smiling because it looks like guilt, or worse, like you don’t care about all the allegations. I’ll be right here the whole time.”
“Okay. I won’t let you down. Let’s do this!”
Kellen puts his feet up on the coffee table and loosens his tie. “So boss, tell me again how I killed that interview.”
I sit down next to him and fold my legs under me. “You just want to hear me compliment you again. Okay. You owned that entire interview. I knew it the moment she asked you about sexual harassment and you said it’s never okay to do that to co-workers. She thought she was going to trip you up with the next question, but you were so calm and answered that you never meant to harass anyone. I swear you actually came off as a romantic, believe it or not. Did you try to make it sound like you were hurt by Gina’s accusations, or was that real?”
He lifts the glass of scotch to his lips and takes a sip. “I was hurt. I tried to be honest with her, but either she wasn’t hearing it or I wasn’t saying it the right way. Whatever happened, it’s hurts like hell to be accused of something and then have the entire goddamned world jump on the burn Kellen King’s life to the ground bandwagon.”
I curl up next to him and rest my head on his shoulder. “Well, I knew you hit it out of the park, and when I read the reviews and the jillions of posts about it online saying maybe we need to question if we’ve all been too kneejerk when it comes to sexual harassment claims, that sealed it.”
Kellen turns his head and kisses the tip of my nose. “So now I’m the poster child for getting the facts before burning people at the stake? I guess I can handle that.”
We sit there reveling in the turnaround of the public’s opinion of him, and I hope soon I can call myself his ex-fixer. I close my eyes and listen to the sound of his breathing, happy he’s got his life back.
All of a sudden, he sets his feet on the floor, practically knocking me over onto the couch. Shifting his body to face me, he excitedly says, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Charly texted me to say she was sorry she said all those things. She said her car broke down and she needed some fast money, so when the rags came calling, she took their offer. I guess they called every one of my ex-girlfriends, but she was the only one willing to say she knew I did what Gina accused me of.”
“She’s a really moral person, isn’t she? Thank God her story was easily debunked. It serves those scammers right to have her take their money for a pack of lies. Maybe next time they can do a few minutes’ worth of fact checking before they barf up a story on the front page of their shitty magazines.”
Kellen grows quiet and looks away. “You know, I get that a lot of this has been hard on you. I’ve got some unsavory parts to my past that have been thrown in your face over and over during this mess. I’m sorry about that, Salem. It makes the fact that you’re still here with me pretty amazing.”
“Everybody’s got a past, Kellen. Some are a bit more exciting than others. You never know. One of these days a guy may pop up out of nowhere, and you’ll have to deal with him with me.”
Surprised, he asks, “Really? Are you saying Salem Roberts has a checkered past?”
Since I know my past is about a mundane as a nun’s, it’s highly doubtful anyone would use the word checkered to describe it. Then again, there was my wild period in my sophomore year in college when I dated that drummer from that band for two months.
The truth is the wildest I’ve ever been is with the man sitting right next to me. He doesn’t know that, though.
A girl can’t give away all her secrets, now can she?